Open Call: Pathfinder Society Scenarios 17 & 18


Society Scenario Submissions

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The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

Heathansson wrote:
Charles Evans 25 wrote:
2) I should have made more of an effort to find out what the 'passive voice' is which you keep mentioning; although perhaps 'passive voice' is a European writing accent?

I think it's the difference between:

The vampire bit Seoni in the neck. (active)

vs

Seoni was bitten in the neck by the vampire. (passive)

Well, actually, topicalizing 'Seoni' is probably a good idea. I mean, any sentence beginning with 'Seoni' is a good sentence.

I think an even better sentence would be "Seoni's neck was bitten by a vampire" because beginning a sentence with "Seoni's neck" is even better than beginning a sentence with "Seoni".

But, hey, that's just me.

EDIT: That's just me and 90% of male Paizonians ;-)


Joshua J. Frost wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
Joshua J. Frost wrote:


And I want to see every single one of you submit next time.
Works for me. ... So, when is next time? ;-)
Next week.

and the deadline is probably the 21st i presume?

hmmm...right in the middle of my vacation on the road...well, thank goodness for laptops and coffee shop wireless in San Fransisco.

Sovereign Court

I'm starting to get curious. How many of the people who sent submissions had done scenario-like adventures before?

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

Plotty Fingers wrote:
Joshua J. Frost wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
Joshua J. Frost wrote:


And I want to see every single one of you submit next time.
Works for me. ... So, when is next time? ;-)
Next week.

and the deadline is probably the 21st i presume?

hmmm...right in the middle of my vacation on the road...well, thank goodness for laptops and coffee shop wireless in San Fransisco.

Off topic, but didn't I meet you at our game night in the Canterbury Saturday night?


Heathansson wrote:
Charles Evans 25 wrote:
2) I should have made more of an effort to find out what the 'passive voice' is which you keep mentioning; although perhaps 'passive voice' is a European writing accent?

I think it's the difference between:

The vampire bit Seoni in the neck. (active)

vs

Seoni was bitten in the neck by the vampire. (passive)

This is correct. The passive voice usually looks like this:

[object] + [to be] + [verb (past tense)] + [BY] + [subject]

Take this sentence:
[CONTRACTORS] + [DEMOLISHED] + [THE BUILDING]

In the passive, it looks like this:
[THE BUILDING] + [WAS] + [DEMOLISHED] + [BY] + [CONTRACTORS]

The passive voice downplays the importance of the SUBJECT, and makes the OBJECT appear to be the active agent of a sentence. THIS IS NOT INCORRECT, but it does have some ramifications.

In situations where the focus should be on an active agent, the passive voice severely downplays his or her initiative. In the above case, the contractors are clearly the active agents, but the reader is too focused on the building to really notice them. In fact, I could shorten the sentence to "The building was demolished" and few would bat an eye, even though the subject - the contractors - would be entirely absent.

Given that we are writing action-packed tales of high adventure, you can see how the passive voice COULD be counterproductive. Frankly, it also tends to be wordy, so best leave it to the politicians ("Mistakes were made!").

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

username_unavailable wrote:
The passive voice downplays the importance of the SUBJECT, and makes the OBJECT appear to be the active agent of a sentence. THIS IS NOT INCORRECT, but it does have some ramifications.

But when 'Seoni' is the object of the sentence, best to play her up, right? Right?

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Tarren Dei wrote:
But when 'Seoni' is the object of the sentence, best to play her up, right? Right?

An easier way to continue with the Seoni infatuation while leaving out passive voice would use something along these lines...

"Seoni's neck drew the vampire's teeth in a sensuous embrace."

See? You even get to use "Seoni's neck" to lead off the sentence. And, personally, I really like that happy ending of "sensuous embrace."

--Neil
;-D

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

NSpicer wrote:
Tarren Dei wrote:
But when 'Seoni' is the object of the sentence, best to play her up, right? Right?

An easier way to continue with the Seoni infatuation while leaving out passive voice would use something along these lines...

"Seoni's neck drew the vampire's teeth in a sensuous embrace."

See? You even get to use "Seoni's neck" to lead off the sentence. And, personally, I really like that happy ending of "sensuous embrace."

--Neil
;-D

Reading both these sentences in the full light of day, I am rethinking my position. The passive is just bleh and makes even Seoni less exciting. Likewise, while your sentence has all the right words, making Seoni's neck an active agent capable of embracing teeth is too much for me.

How about "Seoni's neck needed to be bitten." ;-)


Deussu wrote:
I'm starting to get curious. How many of the people who sent submissions had done scenario-like adventures before?

First submission for me. I wrote a lot of scenarios before, but they were for a regular campaign, never for "one-shots". Also, I'm used to run games with 8 players.

- Zorg


username_unavailable wrote:


Given that we are writing action-packed tales of high adventure, you can see how the passive voice COULD be counterproductive. Frankly, it also tends to be wordy, so best leave it to the politicians ("Mistakes were made!").

There are plenty of reasons to use passive voice. Here is a good website with an article explaining when: http://www.wilbers.com/PassiveVoice.htm

Editors don't like passive voice because is uses more words generally and they pay by the word and have an incentive to keep page-counts down.

That being said, people should remember that they ARE NOT PRODUCING LITERATURE. Adventure scenarios are technical writing in the same style as instructions on the back of bottle of pills or user manuals for your car; they must be short, concise, and clear so that the people running the adventure have as few things to keep in their head at one time when they are scanning them for important information.


Tarren Dei wrote:
username_unavailable wrote:
The passive voice downplays the importance of the SUBJECT, and makes the OBJECT appear to be the active agent of a sentence. THIS IS NOT INCORRECT, but it does have some ramifications.
But when 'Seoni' is the object of the sentence, best to play her up, right? Right?

I concede that Seoni is often the focus of my attention, regardless of sentence construction.


K wrote:
That being said, people should remember that they ARE NOT PRODUCING LITERATURE.

A very, very important point.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

K wrote:
Editors don't like passive voice because is uses more words generally and they pay by the word and have an incentive to keep page-counts down.

Your statement suggests that if we have the choice between a ten-word passive sentence and a five-word active sentence, we'll take the five-word sentence because it's cheap... but the reality is that we tell you how many words to write, so that's never an issue.

However, if you reduce your ten-word passive sentence to a good five-word active sentence, then you've got five more words to make another cool thing happen, so everybody wins. But that's really more about being concise than about voice.

We mostly don't like passive voice because it comes off as sounding weak. It's no coincidence that the words used here are "active" and "passive," and when you're publishing something so action-oriented as to be called an "adventure," you want it *loaded* with "active."

Dark Archive

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
K wrote:
That being said, people should remember that they ARE NOT PRODUCING LITERATURE.
A very, very important point.

You mean PFS scenarios are not nominated for the Pulitzer Prize?


Joshua J. Frost wrote:

My feedback is the same style of feedback I gave and received for years in creative writing workshops. Any time I was in a workshop where everyone hinted and was overly nice about their response, none of the writers progressed. In those workshops, though, where the authors were brutal and openly honest, everyone progressed.

Now, I wasn't brutal. Just honest. If your opening paragraph didn't grab me, if your story idea didn't speak to me, if your writing style didn't fit my expectation of what we need in our authors, I told you. I then, in nearly every case, told you what exactly I wanted to see the next time.

And I want to see every single one of you submit next time.

QFT. You can't get better without honest feedback. I've taken my fair share of creative writing classes, and submitted a few short story proposals. It is rare to see an editor give actual feedback. Most publications just send rejection form letters that give you no idea on how to improve your writing.

With that said, I'm looking forward to the next open call.

Josh - Thanks again for the critiques. I'd even welcome you to be more brutal.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Yeah; counting words to make something cost less is pretty much never in our minds. Words are cheep. The only real reason we hate passive voice is because, as Vic mentions, it sounds weak and timid. It's boring.

"The dragon will breathe fire on the town." is not as good as "The dragon breathes fire on the town." The first version (passive) feels like something that might happen, while the second version (not passive) is happening RIGHT NOW!!! RUN FOR THE HILLS!


I thought the first was future tense... or modal future.

"Fire was breathed onto the town"

That's passive.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Also... and I'm not sure if this link's been posted yet... but here's a really handy website that explains passive voice with some handy graphics.


=P

All in fun.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Kruelaid wrote:

I thought the first was future tense... or modal future.

"Fire was breathed onto the town"

That's passive.

Yeah; my example wasn't 100% exact. That last link I posted does a better job at explaining it.

THAT SAID: present tense is usually the best choice to write in for adventures if you can swing it.


James Jacobs wrote:
...my example wasn't 100% exact...

So somewhere between 0% and 99% correct, right?


Get a beer and watch the election result James. I think your mind is slipping.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Kruelaid wrote:
Get a beer and watch the election result James. I think your mind is slipping.

If, by "beer" you meant to say "latte" and by "election result" you meant to say "play Fallout 3," that's a damn fine idea!

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

James Jacobs wrote:
The only real reason we hate passive voice is because, as Vic mentions, it sounds weak and timid. It's boring.

(1) The dragon breathes fire on the town.

(simple present -- active voice)

(2) The dragon will breathe fire on the town.
(simple future -- active voice)

(3) Fire is breathed on the town by the dragon.
(simple present -- passive voice)

(4) Fire will be breathed on the town by the dragon.
(simple future -- passive voice)

I found the feedback on my submision very helpful. I think I edited out most examples of the passive, such as (3) or (4) above, but I did tend to use future tense (2) a lot. I can see that the simple present makes the writing more immediate.

I'm going to continue to submit in future open calls partly, of course, with hopes of getting a proposal accepted but also because I found the feedback -- both Joshua's and the discussion in these threads -- helpful. Heck, it's worth it for the exercise alone.


Kruelaid wrote:
Get a beer and watch the election result James. I think your mind is slipping.
James Jacobs wrote:
If, by "beer" you meant to say "latte" and by "election result" you meant to say "play Fallout 3," that's a damn fine idea!

Fallout 3. 2008 Election.

Apt.


James Jacobs wrote:
The only real reason we hate passive voice is because, as Vic mentions, it sounds weak and timid. It's boring.
Tarren Dei wrote:


(1) The dragon breathes fire on the town.
(simple present -- active voice)

(2) The dragon will breathe fire on the town.
(simple future -- active voice)

(3) Fire is breathed on the town by the dragon.
(simple present -- passive voice)

(4) Fire will be breathed on the town by the dragon.
(simple future -- passive voice)

An excellent breakdown, although I still prefer to keep "will" distinct from "going to" by calling the former "modal future" or "simple future - modal" or something like that, otherwise my students don't know which "simple future" I'm talking about.

As for passive being weak, I have still found reason to use it when dealing with customer service as in the following:

"Cosmo, Order #555234 was lost, can we do something about that?"

Because it tends to get better results than:

"Cosmo, you lost my order, beotch!"

But then that may be because it's so timid...

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

Kruelaid wrote:


"Cosmo, Order #555234 was lost, can we do something about that?"

Because it tends to get better results than:

"Cosmo, you lost my order, beotch!"

But then that may be because it's so timid...

No. I think Cosmo would respond to that. I'm sure he would. Try it.


Vic Wertz wrote:
K wrote:
Editors don't like passive voice because is uses more words generally and they pay by the word and have an incentive to keep page-counts down.

Your statement suggests that if we have the choice between a ten-word passive sentence and a five-word active sentence, we'll take the five-word sentence because it's cheap... but the reality is that we tell you how many words to write, so that's never an issue.

However, if you reduce your ten-word passive sentence to a good five-word active sentence, then you've got five more words to make another cool thing happen, so everybody wins. But that's really more about being concise than about voice.

We mostly don't like passive voice because it comes off as sounding weak. It's no coincidence that the words used here are "active" and "passive," and when you're publishing something so action-oriented as to be called an "adventure," you want it *loaded* with "active."

That sounds like your preference for active speech is more as an issue of tone and not something more technical.

Personally, as a professional editor I've seen enough people write choppy drafts because of a mistaken belief that passive voice doesn't have a place in writing. Removing it wholesale is not a "magic bullet" to making a particular draft better. If it was, you wouldn't be able to find passive voice in writing manuals that advocate not using passive voice (and you easily can).

More useful feedback would be to tell writers that situations where passive voice might be useful are not situations that should come up in a proposal. For example, passive voice might be useful if you are dropping backstory for an event into the flow of a description, but if your preference for proposals is for minimal backstory and heavy action for the adventure then that is actually useful feedback for prospective writers.

I'd actually love to see a successful proposal or two with feedback at some point. Getting rejected because some guy doesn't like your idea is understandable, but getting booted for something as simple as not knowing the editor's preferred style is a little disheartening.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

K wrote:

That sounds like your preference for active speech is more as an issue of tone and not something more technical.

Personally, as a professional editor I've seen enough people write choppy drafts because of a mistaken belief that passive voice doesn't have a place in writing. Removing it wholesale is not a "magic bullet" to making a particular draft better. If it was, you wouldn't be able to find passive voice in writing manuals that advocate not using passive voice (and you easily can).

More useful feedback would be to tell writers that situations where passive voice might be useful are not situations that should come up in a proposal. For example, passive voice might be useful if you are dropping backstory for an event into the flow of a description, but if your preference for proposals is for minimal backstory and heavy action for the adventure then that is actually useful feedback for prospective writers.

I'd actually love to see a successful proposal or two with feedback at some point. Getting rejected because some guy doesn't like your idea is understandable, but getting booted for something as simple as not knowing the editor's preferred style is a little disheartening.

Not using passive voice is certainly not a magic bullet for success, but too much passive voice is pretty much a magic bullet for rejection. RPG adventures need to accomplish two goals to be published by Paizo: They must be fun to run, and they must be fun to read. Passive voice works well for technical writing and manuals, since the goal there is to inform and educate. In an adventure, the goal is to do the same but more to entertain, therefore passive voice is less desirable.

We don't have time to be english teachers: we don't have time to go into details of when and where passive voice is appropriate or not, to be honest. That's something that falls very much on the writer to look into—know your audience, and know your editors, and then take steps to adjust your writing style if necessary to succeed there. If you can pull off exciting and engaging writing using the passive voice, great! In my experience, though, even the most exciting passive voice can be made even more exciting by excising the passive voice elements.

Honestly, there's not one thing that we look at when we approve or reject a proposal. It's not like we stack them up, then go through and throw out the ones that have more than 10 spelling errors, and then repeat and throw out the passive voice ones, and then repeat and throw out the ones that aren't in our styles, and only then read for content. We look at a proposal all-inclusive, and if it bores us or confuses us, then it gets rejected. And as it works out, passive voice tends to bore us. That may sound harsh, but that's the way it goes.

Your proposal may be the COOLEST IDEA we've ever seen... but if the proposal's riddled with passive voice, spelling errors, organization woes, grammatical errors, and inappropriate content it won't be accepted. Likewise, a mediocre or cliche idea backed up by sharp writing and an engaging style has a much better chance at being accepted than a crazy idea involving everything but the kitchen sink.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

K wrote:
Personally, as a professional editor I've seen enough people write choppy drafts because of a mistaken belief that passive voice doesn't have a place in writing. Removing it wholesale is not a "magic bullet" to making a particular draft better. If it was, you wouldn't be able to find passive voice in writing manuals that advocate not using passive voice (and you easily can).

Here at Paizo, there are probably almost as many different takes on the matter as there are editors. I know Erik bristles pretty hard when he encounters passive voice; I personally don't even consciously think about it. I mainly think about how to make sentences clearer and stronger (and in that order). When writers use passive voice inappropriately, they're probably not being as clear or as strong as they could be; I therefore find myself wanting to rewrite their sentences. And if I were reviewing a submission and found myself mentally rewriting it, I wouldn't be very likely to consider that a successful submission.

The bottom line, though, is that we want authors who have exciting ideas and the ability to express them clearly and concisely. The better you are at all of those things, the more likely it is that you'll rise to the top of the pack. You won't be automatically eliminated from consideration if you have a couple of weak sentences, but if we've got another proposal with ideas as good as yours, but *without* the weak sentences, we'll obviously choose that one.


JJ mentioned that they don’t have time to be English teachers and that’s fair.

Both James and Josh suggested people go to Owl English Writer’s Guide and I think that’s really good advice, and I say so as a writer, editor, and English teacher. This really is a good resource and will explain very clearly when and where to use passive.

Sorry for belaboring that, but then I find I have to tell my students to go there about 9 or 10 times before they actually do it.


I would also recommend as a former editor the Elements of Style, a little powerhouse of a style book. Anyone aspiring to writing well should read it.

Liberty's Edge

I'm surprised there's no love for Passive Writing in the Paizo crew, seeing as they all seem to be fans of the late-Victorian/early 20th century novellas and such. Passive writing was big back then since they got paid by the word.


Coridan wrote:
I'm surprised there's no love for Passive Writing in the Paizo crew, seeing as they all seem to be fans of the late-Victorian/early 20th century novellas and such. Passive writing was big back then since they got paid by the word.

The problem with stories from that era is that while the concepts are wonderful, the writing is crap. Its what i like to call the H.P.Lovecraft effect, interesting and beautifully chilling concepts coupled with a writting style that makes you want to unread what you have read.

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